The Front Room (Life Between Islands)

The Front Room was iterated as an installation in Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now at Tate Britain (December 2021 – April 2022) was a landmark group exhibition co-curated by David A. Bailey MBE and Alex Farquharson (Tate Britain Director). Life Between Islands featured work from 45 artists including: Aubrey Williams, Frank Bowling, Althea McNish, Sonia Boyce, Tam Joseph, Isaac Julien, Blue Curry, Horace Ové, Charlie Phillips, Neil Kenlock, Armet Francis, Vanley Burke, Joy Gregory, Denzil Forrester, Paul Dash, Hew Locke and Grace Wales Bonner amongst.

The Front Room will tour with Life Between Islands to the Art Gallery Ontario from 9 December 2023 - 1 April 2024.

In Life Between Islands, the front room belongs Edwina (aka Joyce after McMillan’s Auntie Joyce, who passed away in 2021) to an educated woman from a middle class Caribbean background. She maybe a colonial subject, but she is a liberated woman. Joyce isn’t married, doesn’t have children, but she is auntie and godmother to many. She reads widely, is active in the community, teaches at a local Black Saturday School, attends public meetings and goes to the theatre. Like her home, Joyce’s wardrobe reflects style, and she loves to dance in her house parties with playing music on the radiogram. The neighbours complain about the noise, and the police arrive, but Joyce appeases them with some curry goat and rice. But wherever she raves on a Saturday night, Joyce can always be found in church on a Sunday morning. 

Whether Joyce actually lives on her own is left open, and raises questions about social stigmas around single female identity that in a patriarchal context is defined through their partnership with someone else.